Maintenance Fish Tank

Once established, regular maintenance of your fish tank is essential to continue to provide a healthy environment for your fish. Routine tasks to keep your aquarium and fish looking their best include:

Water exchange  

Recommended routine maintenance is advised as being a 20-30% water exchange once weekly to fortnightly, whilst performing a gravel siphon. This can be done by purchasing a plastic gravel cleaner which works on a siphon principle, removing the organic waste in the tank whilst leaving the heavy gravel where it is.

There is no need for emptying your tank. Simply start the siphon and walk the cleaner through the gravel. Just prior to siphoning, trim up any rogue plants and scrub algae from the glass and other solid objects. Let this debris settle then start the siphon. Algae is an aesthetic problem, really. The fish could not care less and, unless all the algae dies over night, it really doesn't cause any water quality problems.

The water needs to be exchanged with clean, aged water. This water needs to be de-chlorinated and have the water parameters that your fish require.

Temperature and Filters  

Check the temperature in the tank and the filters to assess that they are clean and working at capacity. If they are not then investigate and clean and get them operational.

Plants  

Periodically your plants will require some form of fertilisation and there are all manner of products that can used safely. Water exchanges appear to be very beneficial for aquatic plant propagation and so routine tank cleaning and water exchange will be beneficial for your plants. Choose plants that are truly aquatic so that you are not continually having the replace them and clean out any organic material that used to be live plants.